Industry awards – Are they really worth it?
Are you are one of those people who regularly asks their marketing agency whether it is worth the time and trouble to enter industry awards?
If so, here are six great reasons why you should be incorporating industry awards into your marketing plan for 2015.
Industry awards enhance the quality of work
This is because what you are producing could potentially be industry award winning material therefore you will create and deliver at a much higher quality and standard. You will do this by
– Paying more attention to detail
– Becoming more innovative and unique
– Adding better value for the money
– Improving return on investment.
Industry awards help benchmark your own business
The application process for entering a business award can often force you to look at your business from a different perspective and compare yourself to your competitors. You will need to make sure that you stand out from the crowd, whether that is through innovation, diversity, growth, customer service, investment in people and strategic thinking. This will help you think about ways you could be doing things better and identify areas for improvement.
Industry awards set you apart from your competitors
Having both award nominations and award wins will definitely set you apart from your competition. Whether you like it or not we are all in a numbers game. You may have already entered numerous awards, or you may have been nominated and didn’t win; whatever your story, the key to success here is not to get disheartened. Learn from each award entry, ask for feedback and then pick yourself up, dust yourself off and enter again. As they say “you have got to be in it, to win it!”
Industry awards allow you to showcase your work differently to different market segments
By entering awards you can create niches in various industry segments/channels. Award competitions are available for innovation, diversity, growth, customer service, investment in people and strategic thinking, exhibitions, mobile marketing, event marketing, logistical management… the list goes on. These diverse segments will enable you to be more targeted.
Industry awards enhance PR
By entering industry awards you will creates a ‘media buzz’ around your product or service which will get your company name out there and in front of potential and existing clients. Part of your marketing strategy should include production of press releases when you have something newsworthy to announce and being nominated or winning an award is most certainly newsworthy!
Industry awards are an important part of team building
Award entering plays a huge part in team building. It is a way to reinforce to any internal team the importance of quality work output and solid team work. The whole team should participate in creative or logistical process brainstorming sessions to boost morale.
Whale Marketing strongly believes that you will see positive results if you do enter award competitions. If you need help pinpointing exactly which awards you should be entering get in touch with one of the team today.
